The trial in the Superior Electoral Court (TSE) that decides on the disqualification for the next eight years of former Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro enters its final phase this Tuesday.
The second day of the trial, scheduled for 7:00 p.m. (11:00 p.m. in Lisbon) will be marked by the reading of the decision of the rapporteur, Judge Benedito Gonçalves, and with the possible vote of some of the seven judges that make up the highest court. country’s election.
Then, although the vote should only be completed on Thursday, judges Raul Araújo, Floriano de Azevedo Marques, André Ramos Tavares, Cármen Lúcia, Nunes Marques and, finally, Alexandre de Moraes, president of the TSE.
To be deemed ineligible, Bolsonaro must be convicted by at least four judges.
On Monday, Jair Bolsonaro, during a meeting with deputies in the São Paulo Legislative Assembly, said that it was not fair to lose his political rights for the next eight years.
“Is it fair to withdraw the political rights of someone who gathered ambassadors? It is not fair to talk about attacking democracy. Improving, seeking to put layers of protection, is good for democracy,” Bolsonaro said.
The first day of the trial, last Thursday, was marked by the Brazilian Electoral Public Ministry asking for the conviction of the former president, while the defense argued that only a meeting with diplomats was at stake.
At the entrance to the court, the lawyer Tarcísio Vieira de Carvalho Neto announced that if Bolsonaro loses the case and is declared ineligible, he will appeal to the Federal Supreme Court (STF). Thus, the window remains open for the former president to run for municipal office in 2024.
To be deemed ineligible, Bolsonaro must be convicted by at least four judges.
The action argues that Bolsonaro committed abuse of political power and use of the media during a meeting that the then Brazilian head of state organized, in the middle of the electoral campaign, with foreign ambassadors at the Palácio da Alvorada, the President’s official residence in Brasilia, on July 18, 2022.
In that meeting, which was broadcast on state television TV Brasil and on social networks, the then President launched several unfounded attacks against the reliability of the electoral process and, more precisely, electronic ballot boxes, used since 1996 and validated by various organizations. international. , and the same ones who elected him for various periods as federal deputy and president.
Bolsonaro, before some 40 ambassadors from various countries, including the Portuguese one, said, without foundation, that the system could be subject to fraud and would not be auditable, insinuated that it was a company that counted the votes and not the TSE and also affirmed, without any proof, that a ‘hacker’ had access to “everything within the TSE”.
The lawyer representing the prosecution in the trial said he should be found guilty of electoral crimes and attempted coup d’état.
Jair Bolsonaro’s defense lawyer considered that what is at stake in the trial is not ‘Bolsonarism’, but a meeting with foreign ambassadors.
The lawyer was referring to the draft decree that would have the objective of reversing the results of the elections by promoting an intervention in the electoral court that was found in the house of former Justice Minister Anderson Torres during an operation for alleged collusion during the attacks by followers of Bolsonaro to the three powers in the Esplanada dos Ministérios, on January 8.
Source: TSF
